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No play in the modern theatre has so captured the imagination and heart of the American public as Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie.

Menagerie was Williams's first popular success and launched the brilliant, if somewhat controversial, career of our pre-eminent lyric playwright. Since its premiere in Chicago in 1944, with the legendary Laurette Taylor in the role of Amanda, the play has been the bravura piece for great actresses from Jessica Tandy to Joanne Woodward, and is studied and performed in classrooms and theatres around the world. The Glass Menagerie (in the reading text the author preferred) is now available only in its New Directions Paperbook edition. A new introduction by prominent Williams scholar Robert Bray, editor of The Tennessee Williams Annual Review, reappraises the play more than half a century after it won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award: "More than fifty years after telling his story of a family whose lives form a triangle of quiet desperation, Williams's mellifluous voice still resonates deeply and universally." This edition of The Glass Menagerie also includes Williams's essay on the impact of sudden fame on a struggling writer, "The Catastrophe of Success," as well as a short section of Williams's own "Production Notes." The cover features the classic line drawing by Alvin Lustig, originally done for the 1949 New Directions edition.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“The revolutionary newness of The Glass Menagerie . . . was in its poetic lift, but an underlying hard dramatic structure was what earned the play its right to sing poetically.” - Arthur Miller

“With the advent of The Glass Menagerie . . . Tennessee Williams emerged as a poet-playwright and a unique new force in theatre throughout the world.” - Lyle Leverich in Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams

About the Author

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) is the acclaimed author of many books of letters, short stories, poems, essays, and a large collection of plays, including The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Camino Real, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending, The Night of the Iguana, and The Rose Tattoo.

Top customer reviews

I first saw this play produced in Atlanta, in the ‘70’s, and fragments of it have rolled around in my brain ever since. First and foremost there was the character of Amanda Wingfield, firmly stuck in the past, recalling her “glory days” as Bruce Springsteen would phrase it, in his famous song about two people in their ‘20’s, recalling how their life had peaked out in high school. For Amanda Wingfield, her “glory days” were from her teenage years also, in the Mississippi Delta, when she had 17 gentlemen callers seeking her hand… and probably a bit more. She tells her daughter, Laura, that a “girl had to be a conversationalist” back then. All those possibilities, the 17, and always the hint of so many more, yet she makes a “poor choice” who would abandon her and the family, and send a post card from Mexico that said simply: “Hello, Good-bye.”

Tennessee Williams sets this play in America’s heartland, St. Louis. It is the late 1930’s, with news flashes involving the war in Spain, and Chamberlain. The Wingfield family is lower middle class, living in a tattered apartment, in a building with fire escapes, subsisting off the $65 a month son Tom, who works in a shoe store warehouse, brings home every month. Williams play is straightforward, and so easily understood, and packs so much pathos and heart-break into two hours of viewing, or reading, which chronicles the poverty of human existence. Reading the play after some four decades helped me recall some of the tragic circumstances of the other two members in the Wingfield family.

There is daughter Laura, a “cripple,” and even back then the mother admonishes Tom not to use that word. She has a physical challenge; that is all. But it dominates her life, and she has not been able to overcome it. Now, many years after high school, she still recalls how much noise her brace made, and knew everyone was looking at her. She is painfully, painfully shy, cannot stay in steno school because she threw up on the floor, and pretends to continue to go, but visits the parks instead. Her sole solace in life is her small collection of glass animals, including a unicorn, which mom dubs with the name of the play.

I had completely forgotten – or perhaps never realized the equal pathos in the life of son Tom. Stuck in a dead-end warehouse job, living with a mother and sister who are each in their very different worlds. The “breadwinner,” of sorts. He “escapes” from his humdrum life via the movies and alcohol, and endures the nagging of his mother. But he has his own plans… for a little real adventure in life, instead of living vicariously through the movies. “Chamberlain” haunts the au courant reader, with the realization that World War II is so near, and so now, on reflection, one must wonder how many bored warehouse clerks, from America’s heartland, found their adventure wading into the surf at Iwo Jima or Normandy? The climatic part of the play, which is what I will leave for the reader, is when Tom brings home a “gentleman caller” for Laura. As one might suspect, Williams remains true to his theme of pathos.

The author makes very effective use of a shadow screen on stage, and the New Directions version helped recall it after those four decades. When there was a flashback in the play, behind the screen, there were the shadows that captured the essence of the flashback. And when needed, certain words would be flashed on the screen. As is so often the case, the foreword and afterword provide limited value to the reader, and I think should be simply skipped. As for the play itself, it merits 5-stars, plus, and a re-read, a few years down the line.

This Tennessee Williams classic is a multifaceted look at a dysfunctional family in the late 1930’s. It delves into familial obligations, human frailty, and misguided decisions. The play is absolutely timeless, due in large part to Williams’ magnificent job of creating a vivid scene in the reader’s mind. Most, if not all readers, can relate to varying aspects of the play, including the yearning for freedom from familial obligation, memories of our youth as we grow older, shattered dreams, and fear of stepping out of our comfort zone.

It’s most interesting to me that Williams appeals to the masses, young or old, across all generations. I remember this play having been one of the few I enjoyed reading in high school; I still enjoyed it just as much, all these years later, right along with my daughters. It is a true classic that has stood the test of time some 70+ years after it was written!

I bought this for my son, as it was assigned summer reading before his senior year of high school. This is written in play format (which I really don't enjoy), but it's a good story of an ordinary family in St. Louis; the daughter has a slight deformity, and her brother is assigned to find a "gentleman" to call upon her from his acquaintances at the shoe factory where he works. Well written family drama.

It came quickly and was of good quality. It was an interesting read. I would recommend reading the play first then the foreword. It was good to finally read this classic and find out about Williams life

This is a great play, both for reading, and definitely for viewing. As a reader, pay close attention to the Author's stage directions, and notes. The play viewer won't hear or see these, and they are deliciously Williams.

This is a very subtle work of literature and should be read as such. It's not a story that will amaze by todays' standards, but it is a work of art in the fact that it makes you think and will have you remembering it as if you were actually there. This is a very visual play with fantastically real characters.